The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today released its recommendations on formulating a Digital Radio Broadcast Policy for private Radio broadcasters. It has also recommended the reserve price for commencement of digital radio broadcasting service in four A+ category cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, and nine A category cities, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Surat, Pune, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur and Nagpur. TRAI has recommended that the digital radio services should commence in Simulcast mode by new broadcasters.
The existing analogue FM Radio broadcasters should also be permitted to migrate to simulcast mode on a voluntary basis. It has also been recommended that the period of authorisation for digital radio broadcasting should be 15 years. The authority said, Prasar Bharati should share its land and tower infrastructure as well as common transmission infrastructure with private broadcasters at concessional rental rates while taking full recovery of operational expenses.
TRAI has recommended that the government should prepare the frequency planning in a single technology scenario for each of the four cities of category A+ and nine cities of category A and place it in the public domain. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had sought recommendations of TRAI last year on formulating a digital radio broadcast policy for private Radio broadcasters.
